This invention relates to coupling adaptors for joining tubing to various sources and devices particularly health related devices such as oxygen breathing equipment, hand held nebulizers and the like in which the tubing and coupling adaptors are disposable.
Disposable flexible tubing has found almost universal acceptance in health related devices such as oxygen breathing equipment using cannulas, masks or tents, hand held nebulizers, humidifiers, air entrainment oxygen diluters, ambu bags and the like. The tubing comes typically as a disposable product, the cost of which is lower than the expense of reprocessing reusable tubing. A weak link in this otherwise efficient medical procedure is the coupling fitting or adaptor for joining the tubing to the basic equipment, such for example as the flow meter/pressure regulator attached to an oxygen cylinder. Such fittings have heretofore been made of relatively expensive parts which are easily lost as well as cumbersome to use.
The present invention has for its objectives to provide a coupling fitting or adaptor which is so inexpensive as to be disposable along with the tubing and which at the same time is simpler to use, consuming a fraction of the time necessary to complete conventional coupling.
In accordance with one embodiment of the invention, the coupling adaptor is formed with a compound front end structure including an outer cylindrical sleeve and recessed axially therein a secondary cylindrical sleeve the central opening of which corresponds to the inside diameter of the tubing. The inner and outer sleeves are spaced apart radially to form a toroidal space at the inner end of which the two sleeves are joined. The adaptor is formed of a relatively deformable material so that it can flex and deform as necessary to be slid over for example a standard output fitting of an oxygen flow meter with a primary seal being formed by the axial engagement of the inner sleeve with the forward wall of the standard fitting and with the outside sleeve snugly stretched over the outside surface to form a secondary seal as well as a tight gripping action which holds the coupling in place.